I'm about 15 hours in (WiiU version) and love it so far. Everything feels very organic, it's well paced and the world is enormous. There's a great amount of freedom to explore at-will while still having the main quest to chip away at. The crafting and weapon breakage is a little tedious but it's a minor gripe and easy to overlook given how spectacular everything else is.

I dig the horses, nothing like storming up to a group of baddies full gallop and double flipping off the front into action. Also fun to paraglide right onto them from on high and archery is an interesting challenge from horseback.

Eh kinda sorta. The divine beasts require you to go inside and are a dungeon of sorts, but they aren't exactly littered with classic dungeon enemies though.... just corrupted goo and tanks..... and a boss battle.

Ditto with the shrines. Some are larger and have enemies, but it's basically tanks. I'm hoping that hyrule castle will at least be an old school dungeon. Just entered my last divine beast. I've barely gotten any memories though and I still have two dragons to kill.

Anybody entered one of the mazes? There are two on the map that I know of. I went to one but it was crazy hard so I left. There's also a deserted island where you are stripped of your gear for a challenge, but again, I was too weak when I found it so I left.

So I did all the mazes... not nearly as hard once you are powered up. The reward might not be worth it.

I finished the divine beast and braved the lost woods to recover the master sword....and....... it sucks. It only has an attack of 30, which is far weaker than the later swords and after a little use it "runs out of power" and you have to wait 10 minutes before you can use it again. Basically they've reduced it to a glorified McGuffin to beat the game and it doesn't have any use for regular battles.

So shrine hunting is getting old for me... I'm plenty powerful hearts and stamina wise and the fun of solving the puzzles is losing it's novelty. I guess I should defeat the dragons, recover the lost memories and get on with it.

This game is starting to piss me off. Took me about 90 minutes to get around the damn mountain and find the water bugs to learn about their divine beast. The obtuseness of the directions and the slow travel times are grinding this thing down. Oh, and it constantly ---smurfing--- rains so you're completely stuck if you're in an area that requires climbing, and hey here's a lightning storm, and we've just autosaved in the middle of it so you get to spend 20 minutes running for your life over and over. At one desperate point, I was climbing up behind a water fall, using mushroom skewers to keep my stamina alive, and it STARTED ---smurfing--- RAINING BEHIND A WATERFALL.

And the use of 2D tools to design the map is clearly manifested in an environment with very few bridges and no caves. It's starting to feel like playing a Doom map.

Once you beat the Rito divine beast things get a lot less frustrating. You'll get a power that essentially lets you create your own updrafts, so when it rains you just use it to fly up the mountain. Also powering up your stamina wheel helps.

I'm currently powering up my ancient armor, which requires me to grind hyrule castle to get machine parts. I tried to face Ganon once and got ---my bottom--- handed to me, so I'm getting ready. The castle, btw, is more like a traditional dungeon. It seems like a waste though considering you can just run like a lunatic, jumping waterfalls and scaling cliffs to reach the top without ever venturing inside.... that's what I did the first time. Upon exploring there are tons of power ups and secrets inside.... even shrines?

So I beat the game. Ganon isn't so hard if you have enough hearts.... you don't even have to be very good... just have a lot of food in stock. I think I only used one meal. The ending is pretty good but it's one of those games where after you beat it your save is updated to just before you fight the boss, so no post quest missions. There are still side quests I want to do, but apparently there isn't any point in beating the game again as there are only two endings and I got the best one for retrieving all the memories and beating all the beasts.

Tips for the final battle:

You might want to get the ancient armor set and power it up to level two.... this isn't so much for Ganon, rather all the tanks you'll face on the way. Ignore what I posted earlier and go get the master sword. It's HP doubles to 60 when fighting Ganon or tanks. Make sure all of your beast powers are full. (Duh). Get as many shield slots as you can. You'll understand why when you fight him. When fighting, run around the edge of the arena.... there are rather powerful knight weaponry lying on the ground. Oh and before you lay in the final blow you might want to switch armor as half of the ending cut scenes use your actual outfit, so link might end up looking ridiculous depending upon the armor.

So is this game not like skyrim meets legend of zelda? Because that is what i was hoping for for over a year.

I'm not sure I can answer that because I passed on the whole Skyrim craze.... far too rpg-like.

Do you like Assassin's Creed?, Do you like Zelda? Particularly Ocarina of Time and the original?

Well this is Nintendo's take on a AC game, only with the isolated, vast, feel and many of the monsters from the original Legend of Zelda along with all the regions and races from past games, particularly OOT. Does it have the ability to interact freely with your environment and use materials in logical ways like Skyrim? Sure, but I don't think that's the main draw. The biggest pro is...well.... the bigness. It might be the largest game map I've ever seen in any game, and every nook and cranny is filled with stuff. There are somewhere around 120 shrines, 4 divine beasts, three labyrinths, 4 or 5 secret area challenges, 3 dragons, 600 seeds and Hyrule castle. That isn't even counting much of the over world and side quests. Many of the shrines feel like Portal... so yeah, throw that game in the mix as well.

The way to summate it is kind of like Nintendo, which generally operates in a creative vacuum, discovered modern video games, they played the best ones, and somebody said "Why choose? Let's make 'em all!" (And flipped over a tea table of course)

The game isn't without flaw though.... there are some questionable control mechanics, a general lack of boss variety and when it rains you can't climb well, which, while realistic, is damn annoying.

I *ahem* acquired this one, but it's so good that Nintendo has my money. I'll go ahead and purchase it with the switch so when I revisit the game I can play it on a newer console.

It's kinda Skyrim/GTA/Red Dead if by way of open-worldness. But I'd say it makes open world games look limited, due to simple fact that you can go practically anywhere with climbing and gliding. There aren't many restraints on where you can go or how you go about it. It also flips all Zelda conventions on it's head by allowing you to solve circumstances any which way you can creatively come up with, non-linearly, and at different times. For example, I was telling a co-worker how I acquired my warm clothing for the mountains by meeting the old guy at the top of this one peak (you'll know what I'm talking about when you play the starting area), and he was saying he got it by another means. Multiplicity in pathing!

The meta game is incredibly deep, and mainly fosters the player to explore more. Which is perfect for this genre of game. It's actually brilliant and I'm finding more and more facets to the game and the engine at every play I get.

Well that's true as well. That's why I mentioned the original LOZ.. there weren't really any rules to it either.

I know I got fed up with the slow pace of finding appropriate clothing so I got lined up with the volcano's center at death mountain, maxed out on elixirs, and ran full gate, eventually running while on fire until I made it into a town at the last heart and bought some flame retardant clothing. The same deal with Hyrule castle... like I mentioned earlier you can run like nuts and bypass 90% of it if you have the right gear.

The open physics is indeed impressive. People have been doing all kinds of crazy stuff with it, like turning a raft into a motor boat by using the magnet on a sword and pushing it against the mast. Myself I've gotten pretty good at exploiting the physics of the walking tanks by chopping of a leg and then hitting them at the right moment from underneath to glitch out their targeting system.

I still think that the Zelda part of the equation is what makes it fun. There have been impressive sandbox games before, but they've never had such interesting places to visit or have had the world polished to perfection. Plus seeing guys like Wizrobes again just hits me in the feels.

Is anybody using Ambiio's? My mom is playing and was just telling me all the cool stuff she is getting with her Ambiio's. The Wolf-Link in-particular sounds really cool. It gives you a wolf that follows Link around. You can have the wolf attack small animals as well.

Turns out we have a number of Ambioo figures spread around the house the kids and I received as gifts because---Nintendo. Link does give you Epona. My daughter has a bunch of Animal Crossing figures which gave us a lot of misc food and other items.

I wouldn't recommend buying any Ambioo just for the game but they are kinda cool if you already have them.

Now that the supply/demand ratio has finally normalized, maybe I'll get some on clearance. I think 15 bucks is a tad high considering I want them more for display and there are far better Nintendo action figures available for that price.

I just cleared shrine #118. I still found a few things after this long. I ran into a bear for the first time. Scared the crap out of me. Looks like my fun is almost at an end though as there isn't much more to do aside from those tedious side quests they have to put in every zelda.

I just cleared shrine #118. I still found a few things after this long. I ran into a bear for the first time. Scared the crap out of me. Looks like my fun is almost at an end though as there isn't much more to do aside from those tedious side quests they have to put in every zelda.

And there's me only having found 10 shrines or so. Damn this game is Huge, Still no real idea on what I am meant to be doing

I just cleared shrine #118. I still found a few things after this long. I ran into a bear for the first time. Scared the crap out of me. Looks like my fun is almost at an end though as there isn't much more to do aside from those tedious side quests they have to put in every zelda.

I just cleared shrine #118. I still found a few things after this long. I ran into a bear for the first time. Scared the crap out of me. Looks like my fun is almost at an end though as there isn't much more to do aside from those tedious side quests they have to put in every zelda.

And there's me only having found 10 shrines or so. Damn this game is Huge, Still no real idea on what I am meant to be doing

The bare minimum:1. Get your elemental powers from the first area.2. Get those powers upgraded by visiting the observatory3. Find a bunch of shrines to get you at least 10 hearts and two stamina wheels4. While doing 2 and 3 defeat the 4 divine beasts. Talk to Impa for directions.5. Travel to the lost woods, navigate the "maze" and get the Master Sword.6. Cook as much stuff as you possibly can then travel to Hyrule castle. Run like hell away from everything until you are at the top.7. Face Ganon, using all the powers you've gained to fight him. Also you might want to know how to ride a horse.

Best ending:5b. While doing 3-4, find all of Link's lost memories via finding the photo locations found in your upgraded slate.5c. Once all memories are found, talk to Impa and she will show you a painting of the last memory. Take a picture of the painting for reference then go find it.

I just cleared shrine #118. I still found a few things after this long. I ran into a bear for the first time. Scared the crap out of me. Looks like my fun is almost at an end though as there isn't much more to do aside from those tedious side quests they have to put in every zelda.

And there's me only having found 10 shrines or so. Damn this game is Huge, Still no real idea on what I am meant to be doing

Luckily this game clearly lets you know what are side quests and main quests. Really it's up to you what you want to do. The first thing I did after getting all my abilities, before upgrading them, was travel around the world uncovering the entire map. Picking up shrines as I went, for fast travel. Then I chose an area to concentrate on first and went on a side quest spree. I'm just about to go to my 4th Divine Beast, and I've already logged more than 80 hours in this game.

The memory unlocking is a great insight into the story line and really shows the breadth of Zelda's character, while at the same time allowing you to really explore. Pro tip: when you get to your first village outside of the Great Plataeu there is a Painter guy. You'll meet him again and again an various Stables in the world. He gives you hints on where your memory locations are. Makes it easier than wandering aimlessly

So I got the 120th shrine. The reward is simultaneously lame and awesome and perhaps a bit nostalgic. Damn.... now I've got to find something else to complete the set and while I'm there I might as well beat Ganon again. I try to get out, but they keep pulling me back in!

Without really spoiling anything I have finished all the quests in the village where Impa is except the memories one, but Im working on it. Im kinda playing the game like Opt, exploring, finding shrines for fast travel.I have gotten LIT UP quite a few times my only real gripe about the game is.....

All the weapons break WAY too easy. Tree branches breaking after a few hits, I get it. Old rusted soldier sword lasting slightly longer than a tree branch, I believe it. An ancient sword breaking after like 8 swings..... how did it last long enough to become ancient? I am worried that I'll find the master sword and not be able to use it for fear of it breaking before I get to Ganon and that even if I get to him with it, it wont survive the fight. I had a Boko Bow break after 3 regular arrows -_-

The map is definitely HUGE. Ive been taking stamina wheels over hearts because its usually easier to run away from something hard to kill over using up my inventory of duct taped cosplay weapons and downing a thanksgiving day feast to make it out alive. For the most part, the shrines are great puzzles that require a bit of thinking and can usually be solved in more than 1 way. I'd complain that there is no map showing you where they all are, but there is......on the internet.

Meh, takes a ---smurfing--- hour to get Link anywhere in this game before you can actually do anything. 50 minutes to get around a mountain was not my idea of fun. The map feels really off and I think it's because of that boneheaded approach of designing it in 2D first. Reminds me of playing Doom in that the map is flat. Go play something like Far Cry 4 or Mad Max and you'll feel the difference immediately.

Re: weapons, this game really forces you to think of creative ways to solve encounters. You could go in slashing everything, but you can also win battles more efficiently than that, especially later when you get more abilities.

Reminds me of the first game. It took weeks, perhaps months to finish it since it was a pre-internet age and there weren't walkthroughs telling you where to go. People forget that feeling as they've probably played the older titles again and again over the years and they can progress from point A to B from memory. BOTW is the same way. Once you understand the lay of the land, you can traverse the entire map quite quickly... even without teleportation. It takes patience though, to fully learn the game mechanics so that you can climb a mountain in a minute flat, ect...